I’VE HEARD THREE STORIES – A film by Marwa Arsanios. The video, which also entails 2D animation, brings together different stories on the chalet Raja Saab (a 1950’s experimental architecture), attempting to investigate and restage the disappearance of a dancer from the Crazy Horse Saloon in Beirut. It is part of an ongoing research on the “Acapulco”, a once very hip beach resort situated in the southern outskirts of the city, that has undergone a radical transformation after 1978. (Libanon, HD, 13′, 2009)

JUSTE LA LETTRE T – A film by Raphaël Balboni & Ann Sirot. In a world in wich life in community has been pushed to the extreme (common showers and dormitories). Anatole has won the privilege to live in the unique place in which individual lodging exists. Anatole, who is supposed to be the happiest man in the world, soon becomes lonesome. One day, Antalole missis his train and spends the night outside. This incident shows him the way out of his unhappiness. (Belgium, HD, 19′, 2009)

AION — A film by Jacob Kirkegaard. “Infinity” or “eternity” in ancient Greek—was inspired by the groundbreaking sound work I am sitting in a room (1969), by artist Alvin Lucier (American, born 1931), in which Lucier recorded himself saying, “I am sitting in a room, different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice.” He then played these phrases back and re-recorded them. He did this repeatedly until his words were unrecognizable, his voice smoothed into a warbly hum. Kirkegaard has taken Lucier’s action a step further, placing recording equipment in four abandoned spaces inside the exclusion area near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant site (a swimming pool, a concert hall, a gymnasium, and a church), then re-recording the results. In the final recordings, each of these ostensibly silent, empty spaces takes on a very distinct resonance. In effect, Kirkegaard has recorded the voices of rooms. (Ukraine, HD, installation, 2011)

EDEN – A film by Rick Pushinsky. Eden is a revisiting of chapters 1-3 of the book of Genesis. It explores the creation of Adam and Eve, their evolving relationship and expulsion from paradise. Having developed the story into a structured narrative, the project was originally conceived as a set of still images. It became apparent that they would be purely illustrative, and that it was best suited to the moving image. Written, produced, directed and filmed by Rick on Anglesey, the Kent coast, in Manchester and London, its portrayal of Adam and Eve as contemporary archetypes and its unorthodox interpretation of the creation myth hints at the paradox inherent in the notion of paradise. (United Kingdom, HD, 9′, 2013)

OPEN – A film by Ivalo Frank. What kind of person can kill another? What drives a person to murder? Since 1954 Greenland’s most dangerous criminals have served their sentences in Denmark, thousands of kilometers away from their families, for undefined periods of time. Entering into interplay with the Forensic Psychiatric Unit R3 in Denmark, Ivalo Frank creates a work based on moving, honest, and critical interviews with five mentally ill patients who live their lives in a closed, locked ward, home to around 18 mentally ill Greenlandic people who have been sentenced to psychiatric care by a court of law. Many of the patients/inmates have committed acts of grievous bodily harm resulting in death, and most battle addictions and personality disorders. (Denmark/Greenland, HD, 60′, 2012)

THE BULL LAID BEAR – A film by Zanny Begg and Oliver Ressler. In their second collaborative film Zanny Begg (Sydney) and Oliver Ressler (Vienna) focus on the financial and economic crisis post 2008. The Bull Laid Bear “lays bare” the economic recession (bear market) that hides behind each boom time (bull market). The film pokes fun at the slippery justifications made for the bailouts and austerity packages by exploring how governments in the United States, and other countries such as Ireland, turned a banking crisis into a budgetary crisis at the governmental level. (Australia, HD, 24′, 2012)

TIEMPO SAGRADO – A film by Enrique Mendez de Hoyos. In Sacred Time, Méndez de Hoyos re-imagines the execution of Maximilian, focusing questions on the forms of delusion of power and sovereignty production in Mexico. The death of the Emperor, a key moment in the history of our country, has been the subject of speculation, as the squad was far from the public consciousness, and is considered an uncomfortable event not memorable, despite the existence of paintings, stories and documents photographic, they do not operate in shared memory as true and unequivocal evidence. (Mexico, two channel video installation, 10′, 2010)

TRANSFORMANCE – A film by Nina Kurtela. Transformance is a video-event-work that activates and documents a five-month durational performance. Over this period of time, Nina Kurtela establishes a daily practice of visiting and witnessing the changes at the building site of the Uferstudios, Wedding, Berlin. She is spectator to the making of an institution, an art institution, the making of the theatre stage. The camera acts as a witness to her performing/witnessing. The piece emerges as a case study of an individual subject’s encounter with the radical transformations of social structures and operative models within the performing society. (Germany, HD, 8’15, 2010)

EL SUSTO

a film by Re’em Aharoni

Fernando Derks Bustamante lost his older brother when he was 3 – an event after which he stopped talking. To heal him from the ‘ el susto’ (fright), he underwent a ritual that carried a promise for transformation.

UP NORTH RIGHT EAST DOWN SOUTH LEFT WEST

a film by Christophe Meierhans

This film is about Western expatriates comment on what they see from a terrace of the old city of Jerusalem. The production of differences and identity, about orientation and disorientation, and about short-sightedness. Not the kind of short-sightedness that an optician can help us correct, but that which we are all without exception too short-sighted to notice: Ethnocentrism, as an unspoken condition for the understanding of our surroundings…

HD video, 20 minutes, 2012

HUNGER – A film by Carolina Hellsgård. The neglected siblings Roland and Paul watch the deportation of their immigrant neighbors. After that the police has left, they decide to enter the abandoned apartment. Inside they discover another world; exotic food, music, clothes and make-up, belonging to the deported family. For a moment they have the chance to immerse themselves in a world of games and play – however when their father discovers them, they are quickly brought back to reality. (Germany, 35mm, 18’, 2009)

EL SUSTO – A film by Re’em Aharoni. Fernando Derks Bustamante lost his older brother when he was 3 – an event after which he stopped talking. To heal him from the ‘ el susto’ (fright), he underwent a ritual that carried a promise for transformation. (Netherlands, HDV, 24:43, 2011)